Widespread delays on TTC due to signal problems, emergency alarms
Posted November 5, 2014 9:20 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Technical problems at two TTC stations led to widespread delays on the subway system on Wednesday morning.
Shuttle buses were deployed around 6:30 a.m. when signal issues at St George Station caused subways on Line 1 (Yonge-University-Spadina) to turn back at Union and St. Clair West stations.
TTC spokesperson Brad Ross said the reason such a large stretch of subway was shut down was because there are limited stations where the subway cars can turn around.
“When we lose signals or there’s an issue in a particular area of the subway, we have to turn trains back. We have to reverse them at key points,” said Ross, “It’s a long stretch of subway that is basically out of service cause of a signal problem in one particular location.”
St. George Station is one of those junctions but because the signal issue was at that location, Ross said the trains had to be pushed back to Union and St. Clair West.
“At that junction of St. George, that’s one place we can turn trains back but since the signal problem was at St. George, we’re then limited to St. Clair West Station to the north – that’s the next cross over where we can turn trains, and to the south it’s Union Station,” he said.
Subway service resumed on Line 1 about an hour later, but residual delays persisted. The TTC is investigating what caused the signal issues.
Meanwhile, around 7 a.m. train detection was lost on the tracks on Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth) at Broadview station, meaning the system could not tell when a train was entering or leaving the station. Because of the seriousness of the situation, the system went into a failsafe mode, stopping all trains from entering the station.
Ross said that when that happens, in order for a train to enter the station, the conductor must physically use a key to unlock the train stop.
“It’s called a key-by. They literally put a key in and they turn it, the train stop comes down,” he explained. “There’s supervisors and track personnel on scene to make sure that when you go by that red signal they’re doing it safely.”
In order to rectify the situation the system had to be reset at that station. The incident caused a backlog in both directions that extended from Kipling to Kennedy stations.
The situation was resolved around 10 a.m.
To make matters worse, emergency passenger alarms were activated at four stations, causing a hold on some trains.
Several commuters expressed frustration on social media with the TTC’s lack of communication about the delays.
“We understand that when these things happen it’s how we respond and it’s how quickly we can respond, it’s how well we communicate,” said Ross. “We had some failures this morning on that front, there’s no doubt about it. We are taking some steps to ensure that there is never a repeat of that communication failure again.”
Currently the TTC is trying to replace all of the the old signals, some of which are around 60 years old, with a computer-based system.
“We have a 60-year-old system today that we are replacing with a brand new, modern, reliable, computer based system,” said Ross.
The signal system has been replaced on portions of Line 1 from St. George to Union to Bloor stations.
However, the signal work from St. George to Downsview stations has not been completed, but the TTC said it is working on it.
Ross said the project is expected to be fully operational in about five years.
“We know we’re still a few years away from being able to throw out the old to implement and commission the new,” said Ross. “You’ve got to replace one fully with another. Because you can’t mesh the two you can’t slowly start to put one in while you’re maintaining the old one. We’re still about five years away from seeing this new signalling system.”
